productiveI did a very satisfactory 2,110 words today on "The Voyeur in the House of Glass." 10 pp. in four or five hours. Much better than my average. But it's a hard piece, harder than usual. Still, I hope to finish it tomorrow afternoon.
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Somehow, I managed all those words today despite an especially acute case of dreamsickness. I can't recall most of it now. I've spent much of the day willfully forgetting. But since I brought it up, and that always leads to questions if I don't follow through, since I do not wish to frustrate, this is what I do remember. This must have been near the end of it all, just before I woke. Being on the street of an Asian city, maybe Tokyo. I've never been to Asia, so likely it was only a conglomeration of images from photos and films. Night. Neon and cosplay girls and noodle shops. The commingled smells of cars and cooking and garbage. And I'm late for an appointment in this enormous silver skyscraper. I can't read any of the street signs, because they're Japanese or Mandarin or whatever. I'm lost. Men mutter as they pass me. Cosplay girls laugh and point. There's an immense animatronic Ganesh-like thing directing traffic (and I suppose this is foreshadowing), and I find someone who speaks English, and she shows me where to cross the street to reach the skyscraper.
There might have been a lobby and an elevator ride, or I may only be filling in a jump cut. But then I was in the examination room of what seemed to be something very like a dentist's office. Only there were a couple of laptops (not even Macs), and there wasn't that dentist-office smell. There was some other smell that only added to my unease and disorientation. I was asked to have a seat in this thing that wasn't quite a dentist chair. There was a woman with a Brit accent asking me questions, checking off items on a form of some sort.
She kept asking questions about my memory, and if I was comfortable, and suddenly I understood what was happening. That I was an android, but that most of the time I did not know I was an android. I only knew during these check-ups or whatever. And then the woman with the British accent pressed her thumb beneath my jaw, and I began to feel cold and fevery. She said something like, We'll be as gentle as we can. And then I saw that she was holding my jaw in her hands. And I could see my tongue and teeth and gums and lower lip and everything else. The sensation of cold got much worse, and she told me to please be calm. Then she pressed something like a dental drill to my forehead and there was this horrible whine and burring sort of pain. She set the drill aside and plugged a sort of jack into the roof of my mouth, something attached to an assortment of coaxial cables, and there was a suffocating blackness that seemed to rush up all around me. The most terrible sense of falling, and I jerked awake in bed. Shivering, freezing because I'd kicked all the blankets off, and Spooky had already gotten up, so I was alone. I suppose I earned that one, what with "The Winter Market" and "The Path of Silence" and all the godsdamn H+ bashing I've been doing lately. Maybe it's only a very elaborate version of my recurring breaking-teeth nightmare. But, either way, no more, please.
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The new ish of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology came today, and it's full of wonderful things: a redescription of the theropod dinosaur Compsognathus; juvenile specimens of the pterosaur Germanodactylus cristatus; the earliest known lizard, from the Late Triassic of India (!!); the oldest evidence for a dental lamina in sharks; Sauropod ichnology; Spanish hadrosaurs; an investigation of the ancestry of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) using a morphometric dental analysis. Yum.
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I'm very happy with the way the current eBay auctions are going, only there's been no bid so far on the green-haired boy doll/lettered copy of Alabaster (plus Highway 97 chapbook). I do hope that will change soon, as that auction ends tomorrow evening. The winning bidder gets two unique items. If this one goes for the minimum, it's a steal. Please have a look and bid if you are interested and able. I just found out today that my lending privileges at Emory expire December 30th, so that's yet another expense I have to cover ($100) well before there's any hope of the Very Late Check arriving. Thank you.
Nothing else much interesting to say about yesterday or today. We heard an owl hooting just after dark tonight. The temps today were very pleasant again, mid or high seventies (F), but cold weather is on its way back. Last night, Spooky read me "A Short Rest" from The Hobbit (which you wouldn't think would inspire cybernetic nightmares). Tonight, I have Ambien again, just seven pills to last me two weeks. My doctor, she keeps me on a short frelling leash.
Okay. I gotta go lay on my face and watch TV or something equally mindless. I've been at this keyboard since about ten ayem (CaST). If this entry is chockful'a typos, I apologise. I think there was a tense shift up there somewhere. Whatever.
Postscript (11:58 PM CaST): Is it just me, or is it awfully frelling quiet out there tonight? I know you're not all Xmas shopping. Anyway...here are two cute photos of Mr. H. P. Wu. And here are two more (Action Meezer!). Blame Spooky.